Take What You Want, and Pay For It.

There’s one or two points to quibble with in this Peter Ladner post from a couple of days ago. But there’s one killer point. He’s talking about the unsustainability of adding more and more cars to the road every year, and he says something so right we ought to just take it as an axiom: “We either pay directly through new fees, or we pay indirectly in increased commute times. . .”

But Ladner reports that Translink’s looking reluctant to implement one set of policy levers that could actually do something about increasing congestion. They don’t want set up any congestion pricing or tolls. (Or, as the kids like to say, they’re not looking to correct the disastrous underpricing of negative externalities associated with driving.) But when traffic’s bad, there’s no such thing as a toll-free road. You just pay with your time instead of your wallet.